NHS beds summary by year, 1989-90 onwards

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Specialty

Specialty 1

Specialty 2

Measure1

Measure

Year

Average daily available beds $Average daily number of staffed beds in which inpatients are being or could be treated without any change in facilities or staff being made. On some occasions, \'average daily occupied beds\' may exceed \'average daily available beds\'. In these instances \'percentage occupancy\' has been set to 100%.$

Average daily occupied beds $Average daily number of beds occupied by inpatients under the care of a consultant in a particular specialty. On some occasions, \'average daily occupied beds\' may exceed \'average daily available beds\'. This can be due to both patient management as well as recording methods. In these instances \'percentage occupancy\' has been set to 100%.$

Average duration of stay $The length of time, on average, each inpatient physically occupied a bed (in days). Calculated by multiplying \'average daily occupied beds\' by 365 and dividing by \'inpatient cases\'. Care should be taken when using these figures if the corresponding \'inpatient cases\' is small, because this may result in a large value due to the calculation performed. Data for this field is not published from 2012-13. More detail is provided in the notes section below.$

Bed use factor $Average number of patients using each bed during the period under review. Calculated by dividing \'inpatient cases\' by \'average daily available beds. Care should be taken when using these figures if the corresponding \'average daily available beds\' is small, because this may result in a large value due to the calculation performed. Data for this field is not published from 2012-13. More detail is provided in the notes section below.$

Inpatient cases (deaths and discharges)

All inpatients who have gone through the full admission procedure as an emergency or those admitted electively with the intention of staying in hospital at least one night and who have subsequently been discharged (or transferred to another hospital) or have died in hospital. Infants born in a maternity department, healthy persons accompanying inpatients and sick staff treated in their own quarters are not included. Data for this field is not published from 2012-13. More detail is provided in the notes section below.

Percentage occupancy $Percentage of time that beds are occupied. Calculated by multiplying \'average daily occupied beds\' by 100 and dividing by \'average daily available beds\'. On some occasions, \'average daily occupied beds\' may exceed \'average daily available beds\'. In these instances \'percentage occupancy\' has been set to 100%. Care should be taken when using these figures if the corresponding \'average daily available beds\' is small, because this may result in a large value due to the calculation performed.$

Turnover interval $The average length of time, in days, that the bed is empty between each patient. Calculated multiplying \'average daily unoccupied beds\' by 365 and dividing by \'inpatient cases\'. On some occasions, \'average daily occupied beds\' may exceed \'average daily available beds\', leading to a negative value for \'turnover interval\'. Care should be taken when using these figures if the corresponding \'inpatient cases\' is small, because this may result in a large value due to the calculation performed. Data for this field is not published from 2012-13. More detail is provided in the notes section below.$

1989-90

19,855.1

15,242.7

11.7

23.9

475,515.0

76.8

3.5

1990-91

19,412.8

14,806.0

11.2

24.9

482,473.0

76.3

3.5

1991-92

18,638.3

14,320.2

10.4

26.8

500,336.0

76.8

3.2

1992-93

18,075.7

13,791.7

10.0

27.9

504,347.0

76.3

3.1

1993-94

17,474.8

13,501.6

9.7

29.1

508,155.0

77.3

2.9

1994-95

16,834.2

12,948.0

9.2

30.5

513,417.0

76.9

2.8

1995-96

15,950.9

12,442.1

8.8

32.3

515,950.0

78.0

2.5

1996-97

15,582.5

12,206.8

8.6

33.1

516,312.0

78.3

2.4

1997-98

15,179.4

11,944.0

8.4

34.3

520,013.0

78.7

2.3

1998-99

14,896.9

11,819.4

8.3

35.1

522,747.0

79.3

2.1

1999-00

14,723.4

11,779.0

8.4

35.0

514,698.0

80.0

2.1

2000-01

14,562.6

11,726.3

8.3

35.3

513,557.0

80.5

2.0

2001-02

14,431.8

11,722.0

8.4

35.3

509,171.0

81.2

1.9

2002-03

14,262.1

11,764.4

8.7

34.5

492,730.0

82.5

1.9

2003-04

14,206.4

11,797.1

8.6

35.4

503,252.0

83.0

1.7

2004-05

14,016.4

11,631.6

8.5

35.6

499,292.0

83.0

1.7

2005-06

13,808.6

11,445.3

8.3

36.4

501,945.0

82.9

1.7

2006-07

13,579.9

11,247.4

8.0

37.8

513,912.0

82.8

1.7

2007-08

13,353.2

11,053.7

7.8

38.6

515,869.0

82.8

1.6

2008-09

13,111.2

10,819.1

7.5

40.1

525,444.0

82.5

1.6

2009-10

12,806.7

10,431.1

7.5

39.9

510,902.0

81.5

1.7

2010-11

12,149.3

10,294.2

7.5

41.2

500,358.0

84.7

1.4

2011-12

11,809.7

10,062.4

7.2

43.2

510,281.0

85.2

1.2

2012-13

11,497.0

9,923.2

86.3

2013-14

11,241.5

9,653.2

85.9

2014-15

11,061.5

9,588.7

86.7

2015-16

10,934.7

9,505.0

86.9

2016-17

10,856.7

9,492.8

87.4

2017-18

10,712.3

9,323.9

87.0

2018-19

10,548.9

9,170.5

86.9

2019-20

Revised (March 2021) Data for deaths and discharges, average length of stay, turnover interval and bed use factor is not published for 2017-18. More information is provided in the notes section below.

10,564.4

9,033.3

85.5

2020-21

The Digital Health and Care Wales daily COVID-19 SITREP is the main data source for COVID-19 hospitalisation figures. This data is based on a different source, definitions and hospital types. Comparisons should not be made between these collections.

10,340.4

7,170.2

69.3

2021-22

10,275.6

8,342.0

81.2

2022-23

10,400.2

8,888.2

85.5

2023-24

10,446.7

9,020.5

86.3

Metadata

High level information
Summary information
Weblinks
Keywords
Statistical quality information
Open Data

Title

NHS beds summary data since 1989-90

Last update

28/08/2024

Next update

September 2025 (provisional)

Publishing organisation

Welsh Government

Contact email

stats.healthinfo@gov.wales

Designation

None

Lowest level of geographical disaggregation

Wales

Geographical coverage

Wales

Languages covered

English and Welsh

Data licensing

You may use and re-use this data free of charge in any format or medium, under the terms of the Open Government License - see http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence

General description

This data covers a time period during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, which has affected NHS services.

During the pandemic, hospital services in Wales were reorganised due to enhanced infection prevention and control measures, and the need to treat COVID and non-COVID patients separately. Subsequently, planned operations were significantly reduced and non-urgent emergency admissions decreased. As a result, hospitals experienced lower occupancy rates in 2020-21 than in previous years.

This table presents summary information, from the QueSt1 return, provided by the NHS Wales Informatics Service (NWIS), on bed use in Wales.

Data presented in this statistical release are an annual average and illustrate yearly changing occupancy rates and bed availability. Therefore, these data won’t reflect changing levels of activity throughout the year.

The data do not present data on average length of stay, turnover interval and bed use factor. These indicators are calculated using data on deaths and discharges which is no longer collected via the QS1 return, and need to be derived from the Patient Episode Database for Wales (PEDW) for 2012-13 onwards. When carrying out more detailed analysis of the deaths and discharges data from PEDW in preparation for the 2012-13 release, data quality issues arose in relation to assessment unit (AU) activity reporting in QS1 and in PEDW and how this should be treated in the data. It was identified that there is inconsistency in the reporting of assessment units, with some LHBs reporting AU activity within their beds data, and others omitting them. This inconsistency in the reporting of AU activity is also likely to affect historic data.

Please find information on changes to the data published on NHS beds, as per the given weblink.

Data collection and calculation

Please find this information in the related statistical release, as per the given weblink.

Frequency of publication

Annual

Data reference periods

Provides data on bed use in Wales since 1989-90.

Users, uses and context

Please find this information in the related statistical release, as per the given weblink.

Revisions information

Please find this information in the related statistical release, as per the given weblink.

Weblinks

Statistical Release:
https://gov.wales/nhs-beds

Keywords

Beds; patients

Statistical quality

During the pandemic, hospital services in Wales were reorganised due to enhanced infection prevention and control measures, and the need to treat COVID and non-COVID patients separately. Subsequently, planned operations were significantly reduced and non-urgent emergency admissions decreased. As a result, hospitals experienced lower occupancy rates in 2020-21 than in previous years.
Therefore, caution should be exercised in comparing occupancy rates between 2020-21 and previous years.

The Digital Health and Care Wales (DHCW) daily COVID-19 SITREP is the main data source for COVID-19 hospitalisation figures, with data published daily by Welsh Government. The data presented in this statistical release is based on a different source, different definitions and different hospital types. Therefore comparisons should not be made between these two collections.

Recoding for 2016-17: It has been identified that North Wales Adolescent Service moved from their site in Colwyn Bay to Abergele Hospital in 2009. Prior to 2009-10, these beds were recorded under North Wales Adolescent Service, while they have been recorded under the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board total, and were not recorded under a hospital site, from 2009-10 onwards. During 2016-17, it was agreed that this data should be recorded under Abergele, and this change is reflected in the publication.
Ysbyty Gwynedd and University Hospital Llandough submitted data under the neurology specialty in 2016-17. This has been reported under other neurology, as this is consistent with how data is submitted by other hospitals.

Recoding in 2017-18: From April 2016, new codes were introduced for describing specialties to add more detail to data collections. Until all health boards are able to report data consistently using the more detailed codes, we have recoded specialties as their previous description to avoid inconsistent reporting. Specifically, ‘Breast Surgery’ data has been recoded as ‘General Surgery’ which is how it has been recorded historically. We recoded ‘Stroke Medicine’ as ‘General Medicine’ and ‘Interventional Radiology’ as ‘Radiology’.

Please find further information regarding data quality in the related statistical release, as per the given weblink.

Metadata

Title

Last update

Next update

Publishing organisation

Contact email

Designation

Lowest level of geographical disaggregation

Geographical coverage

Languages covered

Data licensing

General description

Data collection and calculation

Frequency of publication

Data reference periods

Users, uses and context

Revisions information

Weblinks

Keywords

Statistical quality

Name

Dataset

Metadata

Dimensions

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